Forms: α. 6 vaute, 6–7 vaut; 6 vaught. β. 6– vault. [app. ad. OF. volter (voulter, etc.) to gambol, leap, assimilated in form to prec.]
1. trans. a. To mount (a horse) by leaping. rare–1
1538. Elyot, Desultor, he that can vaute [pr. vaunte; 1545 vaulte] a horse, and leape frome one horsbacke vnto an other. [Cf. VAULTING vbl. sb.2 1, quot. 1531.)
† b. fig. (Cf. LEAP v. 9.) Obs.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., I. vi. 134. Should he make me Liue like Diana’s Priest, betwixt cold sheets, Whiles he is vaulting variable Rampes In your despight.
c. To get over, surmount, by vaulting.
1884. Kendal Mercury & Times, 3 Oct., 5/1. The gate … has been locked,… so that foot passengers have to vault the gate.
1901. Munsey’s Mag., XXIV. 550/1. Rodgers vaulted the boxwood and seated himself on her veranda.
2. intr. To spring or leap; spec. to leap with the assistance of the hand resting on the thing to be surmounted, or with the aid of a pole.
α. a. 1568. Ascham, Scholem., I. (Arb.), 64. To vaut lustely, to runne, to leape, to wrestle.
1591. Lodge, Hist. Dk. Normandy, G ij. He was actiue of bodie, & vaughted exceedingly well.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., V. ii. 142. If I could winne a Lady at Leape-frogge, or by vawting into my Saddle, with my Armour on my backe.
1618. Bolton, Florus (1636), 170. King Theutobocchus … was wont to vaut over foure or five horses set together.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., II. (1626), 25. The generous and gallant Phaëton, All courage, vaut’s into the blazing Throne.
β. 1609. B. Jonson, Sil. Wom., II. i. Such a delicate steeple, i’ the towne, as Bow, to vault from.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., II. Disc. xi. 155. When we addresse ourselves to prayer … let us … when we have done, not rise from the ground as if we vaulted, or were glad we had done.
1699. Bentley, Phal., 268. In his Dances he leap’d up, and vaulted, like Phrynichus, who was celebrated for those Performances.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. 84. Vaulting from one to the other.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, VII. 285. In standing fight adjusting all my steps To martial measures sweet, or vaulting light Into my chariot, thence [I] can urge the foe.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, VI. xxii. Vaulting from the ground, His saddle every horseman found.
1830. Tennyson, Mermaid, 33. I would … lightly vault from the throne and play with the mermen in and out of the rocks.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 220. Can he vault among swords, and turn upon a wheel.
fig. 1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 68. Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity.
1836. Emerson, Nature, viii. Prospects, Wks. (Bohn), II. 171. As if a banished king should buy his territories inch by inch, instead of vaulting at once into his throne.
1882. J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., II. 212, note. He was ordained priest a day or two only before he vaulted into the Archbishopric of Canterbury.
† b. = LEAP v. 9. Obs.
Cf. fig. uses of VAULTER2 and VAULTING vbl. sb.2
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 44. Harts do commonly beginne to Vault about the middest of September.
1725. New Cant. Dict., To Vault, to commit Acts of Debauchery.
